


In the Pines

by MegumitheGreat



Series: Shameless Mitchentine what-ifs, inserts, and fixes [12]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: AU-Mitch Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Behind the Scenes, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fix-It, I'm Going to Hell, I'm Sorry, One Shot, Physical Torture, Raiders, Torture, What-If, scene insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-03-05 06:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18822997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: Contains graphic description of tortureMitch, Louis, Aasim, and Omar are all captured during the raid on Ericson.  While Clementine plans how to rescue them, Lilly and her people demonstrate what happens when the boys resist.





	1. Louis Captured

**Author's Note:**

> **This fanfic contains torture! Reader discretion is advised.**
> 
>  
> 
> I'm a monster. I know I am. I let Mitch live and then I subject him to Lilly's batshit callousness because honestly if Lilly didn't shank him in the carotid (or as someone else put it--he deepthroats a knife), she would have made him the top priority, at least imo. Another person mentioned that the greenhouse decision to bury or burn Ms. Martin could have played into that (capturing or death) but nope! They just rip him away...so I guess, with this, I "fix it" (and I don't even want to say that since Mitch's death is still important).
> 
> That said, scenes from the game itself are more or less paraphrased rather than exactly what happens just for the sake of moving on with what goes on.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis gets captured along with Aasim, Omar, and Mitch. With Mitch causing problems, Louis becomes the example.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ex post facto note: This fic is intended to be read either Chapter 1 or Chapter 2. The chapters are extremely similar to mimic the way the game handles choices. I just wanted to see what it would be like to write for either path, and granted Violet's path had less thought, I think it's different enough?

The bang of the gunshot clapped like a nearby roll of thunder. It took a few seconds for all the kids to realize that Omar had been shot in the leg. Clementine, Mitch, AJ—everyone was shocked that the raiders’ assault was happening now. While Clementine pulled Omar behind one of the toppled-over picnic tables to safety, Mitch and Willy hid in the bushes near the gate with the bomb. The other kids, following their strategist’s orders, hid among the different covers and obstacles.

“I’ll be fine,” Omar told her. “Just get to cover. Take them out.”

Clementine was reluctant to leave their chef alone, but she knew that she had to make sure to hold the raiders’ attention to give Mitch and Willy a chance to plant their bomb. She dove to the only table that hadn’t been pushed over, grabbed the bow that had helped Marlon survive until the other day, and waited.

A Molotov cocktail soared over the gate, breaking on the barricade and setting it ablaze. Mitch and Willy, both fascinated with fire and explosions, were for once nervous about their proximity to the flames. But once Lilly and her soldiers breached their defenses, they knew there was no turning back.

“Clementine!” Lilly almost sang out. “Where are you, Clementine? I know you’re not trying to hide from us! We can still get this over with peacefully! All you have to do is surrender your people.”

The other kids shrunk in their hiding places, and Clementine kept her eyes on Mitch and Willy, who were waiting for the opportune moment. It was now or never—she rose from her hiding spot, arrow nocked and string drawn.

“Lilly!” Clementine called out to the woman that had ruined her first group. When she was younger, she had feared her. Tonight, there was no such fear. She was only determined to kill her.

“There you are,” Lilly smirked. The evil smile dissolved, clenched teeth peeking through her dried lips and completing the callous look of a madwoman. “Where are our new recruits?”

“They’re not yours!”

“Learned to talk back? You’ve changed.”

“I grew up!”

“I can see that. God, you are just like him. If only Lee could see you now, he would be so ashamed to know that he taught you all the wrong things to survive.”

“No,” Clementine denied, shaking her head. “Lee would be proud! I’ve made it this far, and I’m not about to stop because of you.”

“You can’t protect them, Clementine.” The militaristic woman slightly turned to her people. “Search the yard. Find every last child you can. If Clementine moves, shoot her.”

Abel was slowly making his way to where Mitch and Willy were hiding. “I’d be careful if I were you, Lilly! We’ve got traps all over this place!” Clementine warned them. “If you want to make it out in one piece, I suggest you leave. Can’t you read?” She nodded up to the banner hanging on the front of the school. Written in bold letters, it said LEAVE OR DIE.

“Oh, that’s cute,” Lilly laughed. “I know you’re bluffing, Clementine. We’re not leaving until we’ve captured every single one of you.”

Abel and the other soldiers regrouped behind Lilly, and Mitch and Willy snuck around to the back of their caged wagon. The former put all his faith in Clementine’s plan, and he wanted to make sure he did her proud. But the anxiety and fear that it would fall apart was creeping into him.

He forced himself to relax, fitting the bomb—a bleach bottle filled with propane-soaked dirt and fertilizer and topped off with a fuse—between the bars. Just destroy the wagon. They won’t be able to take them as long as they don’t have that. It was ready, and they stayed hidden behind there to light it up.

“Do you really think you can stop us, Clementine? We are trying to protect you,” Lilly tried to persuade her. She could clearly see that her words had no effect on her, so she switched her strategy. “Minnie wanted to come tonight,” she declared. She knew that the twin had left behind a younger brother and a girlfriend.

Violet wanted to believe her, but she knew that it was a lie. Minerva had to be dead, right? Unfortunately, not everyone saw through it. Tennessee emerged from where he was hiding, and Clementine immediately felt something snapped in her.

“Minnie wanted me to tell you that she really misses you,” Lilly coaxed the little boy.

“Don’t listen to her, Tenn!” Clementine rebuffed. “She took your sister away from her family, _from her home._ ”

“If you come with us, I can take you to see her.”

Tennessee took a step to Lilly. “Please, let me see her,” he foolishly asked of her.

“Tenn!”

Mitch lit the fuse, and in seconds, his bomb went off. The wagon was partially destroyed, but one of the horses pulling the cart had escaped. Lilly and her soldiers were thrown off-guard, giving them a chance to fall back behind cover. Clementine signaled everyone to fire onto them. She took a shot at Lilly, but she rolled out of the way.

“Shit!” Lilly snarled. She got up, dashing to Tenn and taking him hostage at knife point.

Clementine couldn’t shoot, not with the boy in her grasp. Mitch had to save him. He steeled himself then charged at her. To prevent him from knocking her over, and because he was far more valuable to have, she tossed Tenn aside. Mitch screamed at her, and before Clementine had the opportunity to drive an arrow into her head, the woman turned her knife on Mitch.

She grabbed him tightly by the shoulder, stabbing him twice in the stomach. The hulking boy was stunned at first. The pain didn’t register until he felt his blood leaking from the wounds. He collapsed to the ground while clutching his stomach and whining in agony.

“Mitch! Mitch, no!” Willy cried, but Louis held him back.

“Everyone, fall back!” Clementine ordered, but she couldn’t leave him. She tried to fire an arrow at Lilly only for one of the soldiers to fire at her with her rifle. “Shit, Mitch…!”

She couldn’t spare a look back at him as she was forced to run. Lilly didn’t fatally wound him, so there was a chance that she would at least take him and patch him up—not that was the favorable outcome, but she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if Mitch died there.

Abel and the others followed the kids into the school building, triggering the traps and killing one of the troops. Outside, Lilly rounded up those who were incapacitated outside. Aasim tried to help Omar escape only to be captured. Mitch was still writhing in pain, and even though he was in no condition to move, he tried to crawl his way to the school building. He worried about Clementine and Willy the most. He knew a disturbed person when he saw one—hell, he lived with them—but what he saw in Lilly frightened him to his very core. He couldn’t show that fear.

“So, you’re the one that got that bomb on the cart,” Lilly said as she grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him back to the flagpole. “I have to admit, that was a rather smart strategy.”

“Clementine…came up with it…” Mitch coughed. “And…I have no doubt…that she’ll fuck you guys up, too. Just you wait, assholes…”

Lilly smirked at him. She knelt to his level. “You’ve got spunk, kid,” she said, impressed not with just Clementine but with him as well. “We need people like you.”

“Fuck you. Like I would turn on my friends like that.”

“Don’t worry, boy. We have ways of making you see our way.”

And it was that moment that Abel’s screams echoed through the night. Lilly quickly took Mitch to the cart before coming back to finish off Clementine. But no matter how much she tried to convince her to surrender, she wouldn’t back down. Violet tackled Lilly to the ground while Louis tried to get past Dorian. Clementine had seen Lilly take Mitch away, and in a fit of rage, she fired an arrow into her shoulder.

Dorian knocked out Louis, and before they escaped as the walkers came pouring into the school grounds, she grabbed Lilly. Clementine watched them run away, but with the walkers invading, she didn’t have time to even attempt to run after the cart.

Even then, Lilly didn’t get far before the walkers derailed the trip back. They swarmed around them, forcing the cart to stop. Dorian and Sullene held off the horde while Lilly rendezvoused with other soldiers. They came back, cleared the area, then assessed the damage to their cargo. They had been shaken up but were otherwise alright.

“We got most of the boys,” Sullene observed. “That’s good.”

“They not lookin’ like much, though,” Dorian scoffed. “Gonna hafta whip them into shape as soon as we get back to the Delta.”

“Or you could just let us go—no harm, no foul,” Louis tried to joke.

“Louis, shut the fuck up,” Omar hissed at him.

Lilly aimed her gun at the four of them. “If I were you, I’d listen to your friend,” she cautioned. “We won’t kill any of you unless we have to, but if need be, we will take disciplinary measures.”

“Ey yo, Lilly,” Dorian interrupted. 

She motioned toward Mitch, whose wounds were in danger of becoming infected. The bleeding had slowed to something of a trickle. As long as he wasn’t in danger of bleeding out, Lilly wasn’t worried. She stood over him.

“Toughen up, kid,” she told him. “There’s going to be a lot more pain. The best thing to do is to get used to it now.”

“Fuck off!” he snapped at her. Lilly looked him in the eye, unfeeling, and stomped on his stomach then aimed her rifle at his head. Mitch let out a pitiful cry, and the wounds reopened. “You bitch…”

“Please, stop!” Aasim begged. “Mitch…Mitch, uh, has Tourette’s! He can’t help it!”

Lilly lowered her weapon. “An uncontrollable mouth, is it? We can fix that if it starts to become a problem.” She pushed her foot on his wound again. “And it’s very close to becoming a problem.”

With the cart dismantled and walkers still coming to find it, she ordered the boys from Ericson to start walking in the direction of their boat. Aasim helped Omar while Louis helped Mitch; Mitch whined again while pressing down on the wounds. Living at the school, no one had known the strife they were enduring now. It was almost like a culture shock, and the toughest one of all of them wanted to try and protect them. He wasn’t going to let them hurt his friends—he wanted to show Clementine that he could help her by keeping them safe. But he couldn’t do that now as injured as he was.

“We have got to think of something,” Louis whispered to Mitch. “I mean, if we can take out these guys and save Clem the hassle, that would be best, right?”

“Louis, please, stop talking,” Mitch sighed. He didn’t have the energy to rough him up. Or maybe he did and he was biding it to blindside Lilly. But for that plan to succeed, he needed him to stay quiet for as long as possible.

It took them about an hour to reach the boat. It was probably early morning now, and the fatigue was getting to them, especially Omar and Mitch. The wounds had to be cleaned as soon as possible. As they came to the edge of the pier, Lilly and her soldiers behind them, Mitch couldn’t walk anymore. He dragged Louis down, the knife wounds burning under his shirt.

“No, no, no, come on, Mitch!” Louis urged him. “We’re almost on the boat, you can pass out there.”

“I’m not going,” he fought back. “You can’t make me—I’m not going!”

Sullene hit him in the back of the head with her rifle, taking aim at him until Lilly placed her hand on her gun. She called for two male officers to escort the unruly boy onto the ship. She believed that his resistance was partly due to the agony he was in. It was making him irrational and irritable. She ordered a medic to stitch him up fast but without the local anesthesia they had on-board.

“Yes, ma’am,” the medic replied.

She then had Dorian and Sullene take them to the holding cells on the second deck. Mitch had been taken there to the only cell that had a bed. Once everyone had been accounted for except for the one lost during the raid and Abel, she made her way to the second deck.

She checked in on everyone, receiving reports that nothing had come onto the ship and that they were ready to leave in two days. Another girl around Louis and Violet’s age and holding an automatic crossbow approached her. She had gone to help the medic restrain Mitch, and she told Lilly that he was still fighting back.

“That boy is the most capable fighter we picked up, but it looks like we’re going to have to teach him before we even get back to base,” she sighed. “Minerva, come with me.” The two women walked together. “Anything else?”

“He keeps talking about a Clementine and that she’ll come to get them back,” Minerva said.

“Well, he’s not wrong. I know Clementine better than these brats.” She smiled knowingly. “He seems to be taken with her, so let’s use that to our advantage.”

They came to the room he was staying in. Lilly entered to find that his wrists and ankles had been bound by cable zip ties to the metal ends of his bed. He was lying on his side so the medic had an easier time stitching him. He cursed the medic both for operating on him without painkillers and for being part of the Delta in general. As a former practitioner, he wouldn’t hurt him too bad, but Lilly didn’t abide by the philosophy that doctors were only meant to heal. She took her pistol in one hand, moving to where his head lay. Mitch glared at her with shining green eyes.

“Your friends are going to be here soon, and since we can’t have each one of you in your own cell, I’ll be using you as an example,” Lilly said.

“Cut the shit—you don’t scare me!” he barked at her.

“Minnie, bring the talker in here,” she asked her subordinate.

Minerva nodded with her crossbow still up. She left the cell, returning with Louis as he held his hands behind his head. Aasim and Omar were held at the door by Dorian.

The medic was still pushing the needle and thread through his flesh, pulling the lacerated skin shut. Mitch winced and cringed, unable to squirm with his hands and feet bound. Lilly watched him and relished that he was unable to escape.

“So, what are you going to do?” Mitch taunted her. He sneered at her. “You talk a big game, but Clem was right. You’re just some lapdog.”

“Boys, allow me to demonstrate what will happen when you commit repeat offenses,” Lilly calmly said. In a snap, she pistol-whipped his chest. The air in his lungs rushed out of him, leaving him gasping and choking. “As you irritate me more, the punishments _will_ get more severe, and if you don’t learn when to stay silent…”

She trailed off.

“Alright, I’m done,” the medic said. They all looked at the neat stitches and the threads of crimson that came from piercing the skin and pulling it together. “Now, as Lilly said, keep fighting back, and I might let my scalpel slip. Take off a few things you won’t be needing anymore.”

Mitch gritted his teeth. Lilly designated Louis to stay in the same cell as Mitch while Omar and Aasim were put in the cell a little farther down the hall. When the raiders left, and after they took their weapons and locked the doors, the three boys quietly asked Mitch if he was otherwise alright.

“I’m not fucking scared of her,” he repeated. “Clem wouldn’t be.”

“Yeah, but we’re not Clem,” Aasim told him. “She knows this chick; we don’t.”

“The most we can do until they come for us is to do as we’re told.” Omar said.

“Fuck that!” Mitch bellowed. “I’m not laying down for that evil bitch!” Louis tried to cover his mouth as Dorian walked by the cell, peering in to glare at them. It was a deadly look that stopped his heart for just a moment. “What are you looking at, bitch?”

“Jesus Christ, Mitch, stop!” Louis begged him.

Dorian was seen nodding to someone out of their field of vision before she unlocked the cell door. She had on her a butcher’s hatchet, but in her hands were dirty rags and tape. She warned the belligerent boy that if he didn’t stop antagonizing, Lilly would make sure that his life would become hell on earth. Then she tried to gag him.

She pushed the rags into his mouth, but he kept pushing them out with his tongue or trying to bite her fingers off. Louis stayed against the wall out of paralyzing fear for Mitch and his obstinance. After a couple minutes of struggling to get the rags to stay in his mouth, she hit his head with the handle of the hatchet to stun him. Grabbing him by the throat, she squeezed until he reflexively opened his mouth to gasp for air. Dorian stuffed the rags into his mouth so his tongue couldn’t push them out again and so he was still able to breathe a little. She ordered Louis to cut a piece of tape to put over his mouth while she held him down. Louis complied, knowing that if he didn’t, she would either hurt Mitch or him or both of them. Mitch only managed shallow coughs but otherwise shot her a nasty look when he had been silenced.

“We’re warning you, boy,” she growled. “We ain’t fucking around.” She turned to Louis, who slid down the wall and cowered in fear. “If your friend gets out of hand again, you’re gonna help me deal with him.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am…” Louis whimpered.

Dorian left and locked the cell.

“Dammit, Mitch, why?” he whispered.

Mitch just breathed heavily like a bull. He wasn’t going down without at least giving them problems. Of the four of them, Lilly liked him best. And he was deeply connected to Clementine. He was sure he could manipulate the raiders.

Dawn came, and Lilly brought the boys the minimum amount of food and water they needed to get by for the next few hours. Mitch didn’t get anything on the pretense of his “bad behavior”. She threatened Louis that if he tried to feed him—even so much as uttered his name to offer something—she would make him regret it.

“Don’t touch him,” Mitch told her through the rags as best as he could. Naturally she couldn’t understand him, but she knew insubordination when she saw it.

She sighed, almost as if she felt sorry for the misguided soul. Patting his head, her dark eyes reflected pain. Emotional, physical, psychological…she thought she could make him sympathize, and if she had to break his bones to make him see that she didn’t want to do this to him, then so be it.

Mitch didn’t let his guard down around her. And even though he was very aware that he was powerless in his current state, he wasn’t going to back down. Calmly, so calmly, she took her rifle, and positioned between his head and restrained arm. At first, she only put a little pressure, teasing at what she was going to do or possibly giving him a chance to recant his attitude. He didn’t budge.

“Mitch,” she said, having learned his name from Minerva and his own friends. “Listen to me, if you really want to keep this up, you’ll only be found by Clementine in a body bag. Do you really want to make her cry like that? Do you want her to see a mangled corpse instead of the boy she likes? I can promise you that if you die, I’ll make sure you won’t turn into a walker, but…”

“Shut up,” Mitch muffled out.

“I can see why you were sent to that school.”

Without hesitation, Lilly twisted his arm with her gun and with a horrifying crack, she dislocated his shoulder. His screams of pain were silenced just like his sharp words, and much to Lilly’s relief, it seemed to have sedated him for the time being.

“Why are you doing this?” Aasim asked from down the hall. His voice was trembling. “You don’t have to do this…!”

Lilly approached his cell. She made sure to lock Louis in first. But she leaned on her knees, and it was like they were speaking with the devil. “I do this to prepare you all for what happens when you don’t listen. I’m trying to help you, protect you. At first, it’s hard—it’s a new life, new friends and family—but I can promise you that things will be better. All you have to do is just listen.”

Mitch’s whines came from his cell, and Louis didn’t know how to console him. The bulge of his shoulder was obvious even through his jacket. It was sickening to look at.

A few minutes passed by until Louis, Aasim, and Omar were sure that no one was coming to check on them. Louis pulled the tape from Mitch’s mouth then carefully—and with disgust—pulled the rags soaked with saliva out.

“Mitch, you with me?” he whispered.

He mumbled something into his arm. Louis asked him again. “Fucking bitch…bringing up Clem like that…” he rasped, his mouth dried from both dehydration and from the rags. “I’ll kill her before that.”

“Dude, you’ve got to give this a rest.”

“Like hell I am.”

“If you don’t, we’re all going to be fucked.”

“Look, she’s only going to hurt the one that’s talking shit, right? As long as you stay quiet, they won’t hurt you.”

“You can’t really believe that.”

Aasim and Omar were just as frustrated with the situation as Mitch, but they agreed with Louis that he needed to stop. Mitch refused. He knew Lilly was a time bomb. Everyone on the ship was. He did promise not to make any more noise now that no one was watching them. But when Dorian or Minerva was present to check on them, he called them all sorts of derogatory names. They knew he was only trying to rile them up. They did nothing, and the longer they went without attack him, the more anxious and fearful Louis became. A couple hours had gone by with still no action on the raiders’ part. Lilly came to walk the hall, once again delivering a tiny morsel of food and a sip of water. She found that Mitch’s gags had been removed.

The frightening thing about Lilly was that she seemed so calm. Her face rarely changed, and Mitch and Louis had to wonder if it as because they weren’t Clementine. In her eyes, Mitch saw it all. The hatred she had for her, and if he were able to, he would gladly attempt to kill her at the cost of his life if it meant he could keep her away from the girl he liked and the rest of his family at the school.

“Minerva!” Lilly summoned. The girl came running. “Grab Louis. Give me your crossbow.”

Minerva did as she was told. After handing her crossbow to Lilly, she told Louis to do as she said so no one else would get hurt. Aasim and Omar watched with bated breath. They only saw Minerva, Louis, and Lilly from where they stood. The crossbow was aimed at Mitch.

“Tell me more about this one, Minnie,” she requested.

“About Mitch?” Minerva asked for the sake of clarification.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mitch questioned her, his heart starting to race. Had he gone too far this time?

“Lilly, don’t!” Louis begged. “If you don’t shoot him, I’ll do what you want! Mitch here…h-he was sent to the school because he blew things up!”

“Louis, shut up!” Mitch told him.

“He used to get into fights all the time, and—and he got into fights with everyone at the school and he does now!”

“And his deal with Clementine?” Lilly asked. She held her aim steady.

“Louis, stop!” Mitch begged him.

“He likes her, she likes him. A perfectly weird couple! Like, he’s had a crush on her for a while and all that!”

Lilly looked back at the tattler, smiling at him with the devil’s smile. She didn’t ask for anymore, but Louis kept talking and begging her not to shoot him. He talked and cried and begged and pleaded, but she fired anyway.

The bolt sank into Mitch’s knee, protruding from the other side. The victim held his tongue, trying his best not to scream out in the burning agony that shot through his entire leg. He breathed deeply to meditate the pain away, but it was still there. Every time the length of the arrow came even into his peripheral vision, he felt a new surge.

“A dislocated shoulder and a bolt through the knee,” Lilly scoffed. “Won’t be able to fight much now. Perfect opportunity to punish both of you.”

Louis was disillusioned until Minerva started forcing him out of the cell. Sullene and Dorian took off the restraints on Mitch, who was queasy from the amount of pain in his left side. The aching in his shoulder was greatly outmatched by that in his knee, and he could barely stand. Dorian pushed him to walk, Lilly behind him with another bolt ready to fire if he tried anything. It seemed to her that he had lost the fight in him either from finally feeling that he was in danger or from his friend betraying him. Aasim and Omar watched them go down the hall, and they listened to Louis panic.

“Oh fuck…” Aasim gasped.

“Where are you taking them?!” Omar yelled at them. But they were already gone.

The four women took them down to the boiler room. The furnace was on, the coals inside it glowing red with the anger that was permanently swirling in Lilly’s mind. They threw the two boys down before them, and the light from the fire within cast shadows on them.

“Where the fuck are we?” Mitch asked them through the mind-numbing fear and bleeding pain in his leg. Minerva had pulled her bolt from his knee, which allowed the blood to flow profusely for only a moment.

“For us, this is the boiler room,” Lilly said. “But for you, your own little glimpse of hell.”

“What are we doing first?” Sullene asked.

“Well, since Mitch here thinks it’s cute to antagonize, we’re going to show him just what happens when he does. Hold down Louis.”

Minerva put Louis in a sleeper hold to lock his arms above his head. Sullene walked to the furnace, grabbed a rod, and set it in the hot coals. Lilly found a spare rag lying on one of the crates. Kneeling down on Mitch’s back so he couldn’t get away, she tied it around his eyes, blindfolding him from what was to come.

“Let us go!” Mitch yelled at her, though he had certainly lost most of his bite now that he was unable to move.

“What are you doing?!” Louis’s voice cried out.

“If you move, it’s just going to hurt more,” Dorian said. There was a metal scraping sound followed by the other boy’s whines and whimpers. “Any last words?”

“No, no, please!”

Mitch listened to the struggle, Louis gagging followed by grunts and a scream so long and horrible that he shrank under Lilly. He heard Dorian and Minerva urge Sullene to bring the heated rod to them quickly, and again Louis’s shrieks echoed through the boiler room. There was some shuffling as the three women joined Lilly. Louis was left sniveling on the ground.

Lilly turned Mitch’s hand and opened it then dropped something wet and squishy in it. Mitch cursed and yelped, throwing what was revealed to be Louis’s tongue away. He was frozen in place afraid of what they were going to do to him. If they had just cut out a tongue, what were they going to do to him?

“Not so tough now, are you?” Lilly mocked him.

“I-I’m not scar—”

Louis howled when he found his tongue on the floor.

Mitch couldn’t finish his sentence, not with the terror ringing in his ears like a bout of tinnitus. Lilly smirked at his trembling frame. She placed her boot on his back as Sullene stuck the rod back into the coals.

“This is what happens when you try to take one for the team,” Minerva said in a low whisper. “You just cost Louis his tongue, and now you’re going to get what’s been waiting for you since you wanted to keep this up.”

No amount of pretending could cover how scared he was now. The women ganged up on him. Minerva and Dorian held him down against his will. He demanded that they let him go, but without the ability to throw a decent punch or to kick, he wasn’t a threat. Lilly had Sullene take her place and instructed her to lift his jacket and shirt to expose his back. She, as the leader, wanted to leave the Delta’s mark on him.

“No! Get the _fuck_ off of me! _Get off!_ ” Mitch bellowed when he heard the clanking of the rod against the coals and furnace. He was sure that Louis had passed out, so he couldn’t depend on him. He scraped the floorboards with his nails in a vain attempt to escape their grasp.

“Shut him up, or he’ll bring walkers,” Lilly commanded. Sullene took the tape that Dorian had had on her person. She placed strip after strip of tape over his mouth and only partially over his nose though so he wouldn’t suffocate.

At this point, Mitch knew he couldn’t fight back. He just breathed hard against the tape, squeezing his eyes shut beneath the blindfold. Lilly brought the heated rod over to him, lining it diagonally. She started to tell him to man up, take it without crying, and to withstand it. If he could endure it, then his time at the Delta wouldn’t be so bad. Then she mentioned Clementine and how impressed she would be that he didn’t flinch at what she was going to do.

She nodded to Sullene, who held him down by his neck and head. And finally, Lilly pressed the rod to his skin and left it there for almost a minute. Mitch yelped and squirmed at first, but he was at his breaking point. There was no point in fighting now. He lay there while Lilly reheated the rod and placed it diagonally in the opposite direction to make a carrot on his back. The second time didn’t hurt as much, but that was most likely because the pain was already there. She reheated the rod a third time, this time lining it horizontally along the bottom of the carrot. She pressed it to his skin when the first two brands had calmed down, and when it had left its mark, she tossed it aside. On Mitch’s back, big and bold for everyone to see, was a triangle—a delta. He was their property now.

“Get them back to their cell,” she callously said.

Minerva, Sullene, and Dorian picked up Louis and Mitch. The tongue was left behind, and Sullene forced Mitch to walk on his own two legs; he couldn’t take a step without tumbling over. His knee was swollen and still aching, and the burns on his back sent him into a haze. He was still blindfolded. Minerva did him a small kindness in uncovering his eyes that were red and green and tear-stained. He couldn’t not cry, and as soon as she saw his face, she grew angry.

“God, Marlon was a fucking joke,” she spat. “Toughen up, Mitch! That school kept you sheltered from the world. Well, it’s time to wake the fuck up.”

“Minerva!” Dorian barked at her. “Damage the cargo more than we already have, we’re gonna catch shit from the Delta.”

“Fuck, that’s if Lilly doesn’t kill us first,” Sullene scoffed.

Minerva turned back to him, getting down to his level. She lifted his face, moving it side to side to get a good look at him. “You’ve got a pretty face; I can understand why Clementine would like a piece of shit like you. Always hated you, you know? I only pretended to like you to keep the peace. But that’s gone now. And for what Clementine has done—filling Violet’s head with lies, putting my brother in danger with that stupid little attack plan you all went with—I wouldn’t mind ripping that from her.”

Mitch’s eyes flashed with rage. Even with a shot leg and a dislocated shoulder, he lunged at her to push her overboard. He had slowed, giving Minerva the chance to hit him in the cheek with her crossbow. Almost immediately, a black bruise formed; his cheek had broken and caused him excruciating pain.

The three of them brought them back to the cell. Louis crawled to the corner with the trauma of having his tongue cut out and his dreams destroyed, which ended up leaving him a sobbing mess. He hid his face in his knees. Dorian and Sullene tied Mitch—still trying to resist them since Lilly wasn’t there—to the bed with the zip ties and lay him on his back so the burns were irritated enough to continuously give him discomfort. When they left, Aasim and Omar came to their cell door.

“What did they do to you?” Aasim asked. No answer came. “Louis? Mitch?”

“Christ, they’re not dead, are they?” Omar panicked.

“Dude, we just saw them walking.” Aasim moved to see Louis in the corner of his cell. “Louis, talk to me.”

“Ah…cahn…” Louis’s quivering voice moaned.

“What?” Omar uttered.

Louis let out a ghastly wail.

“Oh God…” Aasim said with disbelief. “Mitch, what the fuck happened?!”

Of course, Mitch couldn’t answer. He lay on his back in anger and pain and wished that he could break his binds to murder Lilly and everyone on the boat. He wanted to kill them for everything they had done. Lilly and Clementine had history, but he would never forgive the psychopathic woman for what she had done to his people.

Hours passed again, and night fell. There was a sudden commotion outside—rapid fire gunshots, yells of commands, feet stomping around below them, walkers hissing and groaning. Minerva and Dorian were at the end of the hall whispering to each other. After the latter left, they heard Clementine’s voice.

“Tenn wanted me to tell you that he forgives you, Minnie,” she said. Minerva let out a curse before whispering back to Clementine.

Violet, AJ, and Clementine stood in the hall with Minerva, and Aasim and Omar were stunned to see one of their jailers working with the girl that had tried to protect them from the raiders. But a look from Minerva told them to keep quiet. She unlatched the cell door leading to Louis and Mitch.

Clementine first saw the angry boy, and she was unnerved at how he had been restrained to the bed. He nodded toward Louis, who didn’t move even when she called out to him. She inched up to him. Slowly she reached out.

“Clem!” Mitch tried to yell at her, but the tape dampened his warning. He tried yelling in general, but she was so caught up in what was wrong with Louis that nothing worked.

Minerva knocked her out then forced Violet and AJ into the cell across the hall. Though garbled noise, Clementine heard Violet protesting against Minerva before the girl came back to the cell she was in and locked it.

When she came to, she held her head. Mitch was staring at her as best as he could, worry painted on his bruised face. She picked herself up, hurried to his side, and removed the tape. Almost immediately, he frantically ordered her to help Louis, who was still in the corner. She reached for her knife in her back pocket only to find that Minerva had most likely stolen it from her.

“Cut me free later, just get to Louis,” he repeated.

After Clementine checked on her friend and learned what had happened to him, she ran to the cell door. Violet and AJ were relatively okay, and Aasim and Omar were more hopeless than before. Then Clementine noticed that the sheet metal on the doors were precariously fastened with rusted soldered metal.

“AJ, do you still have your knife?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” AJ responded. He passed it under his cell door and across the hall into Clementine’s cell.

Before anything else, she cut Mitch free. Then she saw just what Lilly and her people had done to him. He looked greatly uncomfortable, and his leg was clearly unable to hold his weight. She asked him to sit with Louis while she chipped the metal away. Mitch felt guilty, and he knew that Louis would never forgive him for what he had done, but this wasn’t the time to divide amongst themselves. Every movement made him want to double over.

Before she could make any progress, Dorian kicked the door to frighten her. She threatened her that if she tried to escape, Lilly would deal with her. And speak of the devil.

“I’m genuinely impressed, Clementine,” Lilly said throw the cell door. Dorian and Minerva flanked her. “You organized these idiot children, killed two of my best fighters, snuck onto this boat—but it all ends here.” She entered the cell, Minerva keeping her at bolt-point. The shiv that AJ had given to his guardian was hidden under Mitch’s bed where Lilly took a seat. She wasn’t surprised that Mitch had been freed though how had eluded her, and she knew that he would try to attack her now. Minerva held her finger on the trigger.

Lilly and Clementine glared at each other, exchanging stories and their reasons for their actions, delving into the so-called “parable of the twins”. Mitch watched them for fear that the crossbow would go off or Lilly would fire her rifle right there. He wouldn’t be able to do much if such an event were to take place, yet at the same time, Clementine wasn’t going to let him do anything stupid like get in between them. She made it this far, found someone that she liked and a group that felt like home, and wanted more than anything to protect it. She had told Lee in her dreams that she wanted to keep this new family safe.

“I killed her,” Minerva said. “She was filling my head with her lies, and she was weak.”

“Minnie!” Violet roared. “Minnie, that can’t be true! Tell me that isn’t true!” She switched gears, calling their captor a psychopathic bitch

“She fucking killed Sophie?” Mitch said in disbelief.

“Oh, shit,” Aasim quivered.

The cell had filled with an inexplicable chill, and Lilly ordered Dorian to pull Violet out of the cell to teach her the same lesson that Louis and Mitch had learned. Of course, AJ wasn’t going to stand for that. He attacked Dorian at Clementine’s signal, and it was the one thing that got Lilly out of the cell. She was very interested in AJ, and she was sure that she could make him see things her way, the way of the Delta. She took AJ with her to the deck while Dorian head to the boiler room after locking both cells again. Only Minerva stood watch, and Violet tried to talk to her to get her on their side. 

Clementine saw her chance. She quietly asked Mitch to try his best to get his shoulder back in place, even though he didn’t want to feel any more pain than he did now. Louis had been shaken out of his fear-induced stupor, and he helped him while Clementine took advantage of Violet’s speaking to mask the sounds of her chipping away at the sheet metal. She pushed it forward just enough to squeeze her hand through to unlatch the door. She looked back at Mitch.

“Get the crossbow,” she mouthed to him. He nodded with a tight grip on his knee. She sympathized, but he waved it away. “Ready?”

“This is something you need to understand—there is no other way!” Minerva argued with Violet while turning to Clementine, who had just stood back up from the ground. “Lay down, stay in line, or you die. The people you love will die.”

“No, Minerva,” Clementine said. “You just gave up.” She rammed the door and knocked Minerva down. The crossbow fell from her hands, and Mitch quickly jumped out and grabbed it. He took aim at her, allowing Clementine to unlatch Violet’s door.

“Behind you!” Violet warned her as Minerva lunged at her with her own knife.

Mitch lowered the crossbow for just a moment; his shoulder was still sore, but he couldn’t let the jailer take out their leader. He saw Minerva kick Clementine’s leg down, straddling her and forcing her knife against her so that it just pierced her skin under her clavicle. Mitch fired the bolt into her shoulder. He had stunned her.

“Minerva!” Violet screeched.

Clementine wasted no time getting to Aasim and Omar’s cell. She opened it, and the former immediately went to Louis’s side to help him out since he was still somewhat dazed.

“Violet, we need to go,” Omar told her.

“I can’t just leave her!” Violet sobbed. “Just go! I’ll catch up!

Clementine understood why she couldn’t leave yet, and she looked at Mitch, who was struggling to stand. “You need to leave with Aasim and the others,” she told him.

“Clem, I can’t leave you,” Mitch said, wincing at his leg.

“I can’t leave without AJ; you know that. Get out of here, got it? Don’t worry about me.”

Mitch took her hand. “Promise me you’ll get your ass back to the school as soon as you can.”

“I promise,” Clementine said, but there was sadness in her smile. She had to get AJ back, and to do that, she had to confront Lilly. She knew there was going to be blood. Mitch took one last look at her before he hobbled after Omar, Aasim, and Louis. Clementine went the other way, leaving Violet on the floor with Minerva. She felt terrible for making a promise she wasn’t sure if she could keep. Still, Mitch knew she was strong; it was why he had grown to respect, admire, and love her. He believed in her just as Clementine now had to reaffirm her belief and trust in herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ex post facto note: I don't know which path I would choose if Mitch had been captured with Louis or Violet. Both of these paths have their bad points, so...I kind of would have wanted to see that.


	2. Violet Captured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate idea if Violet were captured instead of Louis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I prefer if Violet gets captured because it saves Louis from getting his tongue cut out at the cost of her going blind. Violet's dialogue also suggests that she really can't let go of Minnie until Minnie loses her mind. That said, I think Mitch would be more brash if he was stuck with someone that is ready to give up instead of being scared or trying to hold out hope that Clementine would come. Pieces of this alternate scene are copy-pasted from if Louis was captured just to save myself the pain of dredging through the build up.
> 
> Based on Rascet's fanart.

The bang of the gunshot clapped like a nearby roll of thunder. It took a few seconds for all the kids to realize that Omar had been shot in the leg. Clementine, Mitch, AJ—everyone was shocked that the raiders’ assault was happening now. While Clementine pulled Omar behind one of the toppled-over picnic tables to safety, Mitch and Willy hid in the bushes near the gate with the bomb. The other kids, following their strategist’s orders, hid among the different covers and obstacles.

“I’ll be fine,” Omar told her. “Just get to cover. Take them out.”

Clementine was reluctant to leave their chef alone, but she knew that she had to make sure to hold the raiders’ attention to give Mitch and Willy a chance to plant their bomb. She dove to the only table that hadn’t been pushed over, grabbed the bow that had helped Marlon survive until the other day, and waited.

A Molotov cocktail soared over the gate, breaking on the barricade and setting it ablaze. Mitch and Willy, both fascinated with fire and explosions, were for once nervous about their proximity to the flames. But once Lilly and her soldiers breached their defenses, they knew there was no turning back.

“Clementine!” Lilly almost sang out. “Where are you, Clementine? I know you’re not trying to hide from us! We can still get this over with peacefully! All you have to do is surrender your people.”

The other kids shrunk in their hiding places, and Clementine kept her eyes on Mitch and Willy, who were waiting for the opportune moment. It was now or never—she rose from her hiding spot, arrow nocked and string drawn.

“Lilly!” Clementine called out to the woman that had ruined her first group. When she was younger, she had feared her. Tonight, there was no such fear. She was only determined to kill her.

“There you are,” Lilly smirked. The evil smile dissolved, clenched teeth peeking through her dried lips and completing the callous look of a madwoman. “Where are our new recruits?”

“They’re not yours!”

“Learned to talk back? You’ve changed.”

“I grew up!”

“I can see that. God, you are just like him. If only Lee could see you now, he would be so ashamed to know that he taught you all the wrong things to survive.”

“No,” Clementine denied, shaking her head. “Lee would be proud! I’ve made it this far, and I’m not about to stop because of you.”

“You can’t protect them, Clementine.” The militaristic woman slightly turned to her people. “Search the yard. Find every last child you can. If Clementine moves, shoot her.”

Abel was slowly making his way to where Mitch and Willy were hiding. “I’d be careful if I were you, Lilly! We’ve got traps all over this place!” Clementine warned them. “If you want to make it out in one piece, I suggest you leave. Can’t you read?” She nodded up to the banner hanging on the front of the school. Written in bold letters, it said LEAVE OR DIE.

“Oh, that’s cute,” Lilly laughed. “I know you’re bluffing, Clementine. We’re not leaving until we’ve captured every single one of you.”

Abel and the other soldiers regrouped behind Lilly, and Mitch and Willy snuck around to the back of their caged wagon. The former put all his faith in Clementine’s plan, and he wanted to make sure he did her proud. But the anxiety and fear that it would fall apart was creeping into him.

He forced himself to relax, fitting the bomb—a bleach bottle filled with propane-soaked dirt and fertilizer and topped off with a fuse—between the bars. Just destroy the wagon. They won’t be able to take them as long as they don’t have that. It was ready, and they stayed hidden behind there to light it up.

“Do you really think you can stop us, Clementine? We are trying to protect you,” Lilly tried to persuade her. She could clearly see that her words had no effect on her, so she switched her strategy. “Minnie wanted to come tonight,” she declared. She knew that the twin had left behind a younger brother and a girlfriend.

Violet wanted to believe her, but she knew that it was a lie. Minerva had to be dead, right? Unfortunately, not everyone saw through it. Tennessee emerged from where he was hiding, and Clementine immediately felt something snapped in her.

“Minnie wanted me to tell you that she really misses you,” Lilly coaxed the little boy.

“Don’t listen to her, Tenn!” Clementine rebuffed. “She took your sister away from her family, _from her home_.”

“If you come with us, I can take you to see her.”

Tennessee took a step to Lilly. “Please, let me see her,” he foolishly asked of her.

“Tenn!”

Mitch lit the fuse, and in seconds, his bomb went off. The wagon was partially destroyed, but one of the horses pulling the cart had escaped. Lilly and her soldiers were thrown off-guard, giving them a chance to fall back behind cover. Clementine signaled everyone to fire onto them. She took a shot at Lilly, but she rolled out of the way.

“Shit!” Lilly snarled. She got up, dashing to Tenn and taking him hostage at knife point.

Clementine couldn’t shoot, not with the boy in her grasp. Mitch had to save him. He steeled himself then charged at her. To prevent him from knocking her over, and because he was far more valuable to have, she tossed Tenn aside. Mitch screamed at her, and before Clementine had the opportunity to drive an arrow into her head, the woman turned her knife on Mitch.

She grabbed him tightly by the shoulder, stabbing him twice in the stomach. The hulking boy was stunned at first. The pain didn’t register until he felt his blood leaking from the wounds. He collapsed to the ground while clutching his stomach and whining in agony.

“Mitch! Mitch, no!” Willy cried, but Louis held him back.

“Everyone, fall back!” Clementine ordered, but she couldn’t leave him. She tried to fire an arrow at Lilly only for one of the soldiers to fire at her with her rifle. “Shit, Mitch…!”

She couldn’t spare a look back at him as she was forced to run. Lilly didn’t fatally wound him, so there was a chance that she would at least take him and patch him up—not that was the favorable outcome, but she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if Mitch died there.

Abel and the others followed the kids into the school building, triggering the traps and killing one of the troops. Outside, Lilly rounded up those who were incapacitated outside. Aasim tried to help Omar escape only to be captured. Mitch was still writhing in pain, and even though he was in no condition to move, he tried to crawl his way to the school building. He worried about Clementine and Willy the most. He knew a disturbed person when he saw one—hell, he lived with them—but what he saw in Lilly frightened him to his very core. He couldn’t show that fear.

“So, you’re the one that got that bomb on the cart,” Lilly said as she grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him back to the flagpole. “I have to admit, that was a rather smart strategy.”

“Clementine…came up with it…” Mitch coughed. “And…I have no doubt…that she’ll fuck you guys up, too. Just you wait, assholes…”

Lilly smirked at him. She knelt to his level. “You’ve got spunk, kid,” she said, impressed not with just Clementine but with him as well. “We need people like you.”

“Fuck you. Like I would turn on my friends like that.”

“Don’t worry, boy. We have ways of making you see our way.”

And it was that moment that Abel’s screams echoed through the night. Lilly quickly took Mitch to the cart before coming back to finish off Clementine. But no matter how much she tried to convince her to surrender, she wouldn’t back down. Violet tackled Lilly to the ground while Louis tried to get past Dorian. Clementine had seen Lilly take Mitch away, and in a fit of rage, she fired an arrow into her shoulder.

She then turned her aim on Dorian, shooting her in the arm and allowing Louis to escape. Violet fought with Lilly, the latter knocking her out and dragging her to the cart holding Aasim, Omar, and Mitch.

Even then, Lilly didn’t get far before the walkers derailed the trip back. They swarmed around them, forcing the cart to stop. Dorian and Sullene held off the horde while Lilly rendezvoused with other soldiers. They came back, cleared the area, then assessed the damage to their cargo. They had been shaken up but were otherwise alright.

“Isn’t this girl that one Minerva used to be with?” Sullene asked her colleagues. Lilly confirmed Violet’s identity with a crumbled photograph of her. The raiders all smirked.

“Will you take me to Minnie?” Violet asked

“Are you serious?” Omar gasped.

“Ey yo, Lilly,” Dorian interrupted. 

She motioned toward Mitch, whose wounds were in danger of becoming infected. The bleeding had slowed to something of a trickle. As long as he wasn’t in danger of bleeding out, Lilly wasn’t worried. She stood over him.

“Toughen up, kid,” she told him. “There’s going to be a lot more pain. The best thing to do is to get used to it now.”

“Fuck off!” he snapped at her. Lilly looked him in the eye, unfeeling, and stomped on his stomach then aimed her rifle at his head. Mitch let out a pitiful cry, and the wounds reopened. “You bitch…”

“Please, stop!” Aasim begged. “Mitch…Mitch, uh, has Tourette’s! He can’t help it!”

Lilly lowered her weapon. “An uncontrollable mouth, is it? We can fix that if it starts to become a problem.” She pushed her foot on his wound again. “And it’s very close to becoming a problem.”

With the cart dismantled now, the raiders and their captives made their way back to the boat sitting on the river. Violet, feeling betrayed that Clementine had chosen to save Louis instead of her, didn’t care to help her friends. She was so lost and confused—how could Clementine let her get kidnapped after all she did?

No one from the school had ever experienced the anxiety-inducing march of death to the boat. They wouldn’t be killed there, but if they left for the Delta before they were rescued, they knew they were going to die for the community tearing them from their home.

The pain in Mitch’s stomach was becoming unbearable now, and yet he forced himself to push through it so that he didn’t give Lilly the satisfaction of knowing she had wounded him gravely. He wasn’t fooling anyone. He wasn’t fooling Violet.

“This is what happens when you do stupid things,” she hissed at him.

“Shut the fuck up,” Mitch huffed and groaned. He gripped his stomach. Lilly heard him.

It took them about an hour to reach the boat. It was probably early morning now, and the fatigue was getting to them, especially Omar and Mitch. The wounds had to be cleaned as soon as possible. As they came to the edge of the pier, Lilly and her soldiers behind them, Mitch couldn’t walk anymore. He fell to his knees not only in pain but in defiance of Lilly and her subordinates. Violet rolled her eyes as if to question why even bother trying to fight back.

“I’m not going,” he fought back. “You can’t make me—I’m not going!”

Sullene hit him in the back of the head with her rifle, taking aim at him until Lilly placed her hand on her gun. She called for two male officers to escort the unruly boy onto the ship. She believed that his resistance was partly due to the agony he was in. It was making him irrational and irritable. She ordered a medic to stitch him up fast but without the local anesthesia they had on-board.

“Yes, ma’am,” the medic replied.

She then had Dorian and Sullene take them to the holding cells on the second deck. Mitch had been taken there to the only cell that had a bed. Once everyone had been accounted for except for the one lost during the raid and Abel, she made her way to the second deck.

She checked in on everyone, receiving reports that nothing had come onto the ship and that they were ready to leave in two days. Another girl around Louis and Violet’s age and holding an automatic crossbow approached her. She had gone to help the medic restrain Mitch, and she told Lilly that he was still fighting back.

“That boy is the most capable fighter we picked up, but it looks like we’re going to have to teach him before we even get back to base,” she sighed. “Minerva, come with me.” The two women walked together. “Anything else?”

“He keeps talking about a Clementine and that she’ll come to get them back,” Minerva said.

“Well, he’s not wrong. I know Clementine better than these brats.” She smiled knowingly. “He seems to be taken with her, so let’s use that to our advantage.”

They came to the room he was staying in. Lilly entered to find that his wrists and ankles had been bound by cable zip ties to the metal ends of his bed. He was lying on his side so the medic had an easier time stitching him. He cursed the medic both for operating on him without painkillers and for being part of the Delta in general. As a former practitioner, he wouldn’t hurt him too bad, but Lilly didn’t abide by the philosophy that doctors were only meant to heal. She took her pistol in one hand, moving to where his head lay. Mitch glared at her with shining green eyes.

“Your friends are going to be here soon, and since we can’t have each one of you in your own cell, I’ll be using you as an example,” Lilly said.

“Cut the shit—you don’t scare me!” he barked at her.

“Everyone always says that at first. They try to act tough, but deep down inside, they’re always scared.” She turned to Violet as she came down the hall with Dorian behind her. The girl was compliant with her. “Even the loudest dogs get scared. Don’t make me use your friends as an example.

The medic was still pushing the needle and thread through his flesh, pulling the lacerated skin shut. Mitch winced and cringed, unable to squirm with his hands and feet bound. Lilly watched him and relished that he was unable to escape.

When all was done and the kids were locked away in their cells, Lilly ordered Dorian and Minerva to keep their weapons aimed at the feisty brunet. She carefully cut the ties that kept him on the bed then held her pistol and knife at the ready in case he tried to attack. She didn’t want to damage him too much. She had hoped that Violet’s unwillingness to fight would dampen his spirit, and after warning him not to attack her or else face the consequences, she closed his cell door and locked it.

“Rest up,” Lilly said. “We leave in two days. And once we start heading home, we’ll teach you the best way to stay alive.”

“Fuck you,” Mitch snarled. “Clem will come for us. And you bet your ass she’s going to make sure all of you are dead.”

Minerva aimed her crossbow at him, but Lilly motioned for her to lower it. He was simply still in shock. He had been plucked from a rotting shithole that he thought was his home. The redhead had told her superior a little about him. Before Lilly left them, she stood in front of his door.

“All of you were put in that school to get rid of those bad behaviors,” she told them. She eyed Mitch, whose limitless anger and fascination with explosions and itch to fight with everyone were precious gems coveted by the Delta. “Your parents abandoned you here. You have no family, no home. But the Delta, oh the Delta—they will welcome you with open arms. Those bad behaviors aren’t bad. We can help you hone them. Turn them into talents and make our community stronger.”

Mitch paced around, covering his ears. They weren’t abandoned! Their parents wanted them to find help. Their teachers loved them. Their teachers ran away when the apocalypse happened. Violet knew this much was true. The adults never truly cared about any of them. They had been little moneymakers, and once money stopped meaning anything in the world, they left them behind.

“Clementine will find us!” Aasim snapped back. He shut his mouth when Dorian flashed him a deadly glare.

“Oh my God, will you just shut up?” Violet grunted finally. “Clem isn’t going to get us! She let you get captured! Fuck Clementine!”

Mitch turned to her with the intent to make her take those words back. But Violet had already surrendered. She sat down in the corner of the room, tucking herself into a ball and just went to sleep. She was tired of the arguing. The only thing that mattered to her was that Minerva was at least still alive, still there. Lilly, Minerva, and Dorian left them alone.

“You’re really not going to try and fight?” Mitch asked Violet. She had been sitting on the floor with her knees to her chest for hours. The scowl on her face was always present. “What about Clem, Vi? Don’t you care about her or anyone else at the school?”

“Fuck everyone,” Violet hissed. “Minnie is here. Minnie is where my home is, and I’m not going back. Not after all I’ve done for Clem and then getting betrayed like this.”

Mitch clenched his teeth. His grip tightened around his shiv. He didn’t see the point in trying to convince Violet to aid in his attack on the raiders, but he hated that she was going to give up so easily on Clementine after all the time she spent supporting her and vouching for her.

“Do whatever you want,” he lashed out at her. “Fuck you, Vi. I’m getting out of here.”

“Why, so you can get your dick in Clem? There’s no point, Mitch. Clem isn’t going to save us—she can’t save us.”

“Maybe not you, but I’m at least willing to try to escape!”

Mitch waited then. He knew what he was going to do. Jump whoever came to their cell and stab them as many times as it took to kill them.

“Opening your fucking eyes, Mitch!” Violet barked at him. “Look at all the guards around this place! Do you really think Clem’s going to break through them? Are you that desperate?”

The brunet ignored her as he listened intently and carefully. Footsteps were coming their way. He held his shiv at the ready. Whoever it was, he was going to take them down. Except it was the worst person that it could have been. The latch screeched as the person pulled it from the hole in the floor. The door creaked eerily as they opened it. One leg crossed the threshold. Without a moment to spare, Mitch plunged the shiv into the side of the person’s calf.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Minerva’s voice roared. Mitch stabbed her leg a couple more times with some hope that maybe she would collapse, but no. She didn’t. Minerva was a girl that had been destroyed and rebuilt into a warrior tank. “Mitch, you fucking piece of shit!”

At the same time that Minerva recovered from the attack and lifted her crossbow to pierce his chest to make him suffer just before he died, Violet got in between them. Mitch had been taken aback that Minerva did not fall. He didn’t notice when Violet had taken his shiv from his hand and stabbed him in the back. They weren’t fatal wounds; the blade was far too short to do any real damage. In fact, it would have broken inside of him if she kept stabbing him. He let out screams of agony and whines. His back was paralyzed from the sudden shock.

“Violet, what the fuck are you doing?!” Aasim cursed her.

“I’m not letting you hurt Minnie,” she said low and gravelly to the boy frozen on the ground. “You can kill anyone else, but you’re not killing her.” She looked up at her girlfriend, who was backing up into the hall. “Minnie, where are you going?”

“I can’t let this go, Vi,” Minerva told her. She ran down the second deck to the first deck looking for her commander. When she returned, Dorian was behind her at Lilly’s request. She had a butcher’s hatchet strapped to her belt. Her big, hulking figure frightened Violet, but Mitch wasn’t scared of her explicitly despite his injuries. “If you just behaved, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Fuck…you…Minerva…!” Mitch spat between huffs.

“Minnie, go hit up the doc for that stuff Lilly mentioned,” Dorian ordered. “Something tells me that this kid’s going to need them.”

Minerva obeyed her superior’s command. She left the room, granting her the deniability that Dorian would do something more than just reprimand Mitch for trying to attack them. Violet stayed close to the wall as if she had been told time and time again that if she got in the way of anything they did on the boat, she would be killed regardless of what Minerva said or did to protect her.

Mitch pushed himself up to a sitting position, his body reeling from the stab wounds. He hated Violet for what she did. How could she compromise him like this? He had lost his shiv thanks to her, but he at least still had his fists. Letting out a ferocious battle cry, he sprung up to attack Dorian. He went for her throat with the intent to choke her, only to do that he had to get through her defenses. Dorian pulled the hatchet as she grabbed his wrist and spun him around. If he struggled, he threatened to dislocate his own arm.

“You made the wrong choice, kid,” she rumbled.

“I’ll kill you! I’m going to fucking kill you!” Mitch screamed at her.

“Go ahead and try.”

She pulled up on his arm, pain shooting into his shoulder and elbow joints. She pressed his hand up against his back. She isolated his ring finger, and very carefully so she didn’t cut the other fingers, she pressed the crude titanic blade against him. She sliced through the flesh and tendons without a problem, and the bone required only a slightly increased amount of force. She kept pressing, the hatchet digging slowly into Mitch’s back. The painstaking slowness of the amputation had made the pain unbearable, which forced screams to erupt from Mitch’s trembling being. The weight on the blade had pulled on his joints like before, and while he hadn’t felt any dislocation, his arm hurt as he was allowed to unfurl it from behind him.

But Dorian wasn’t finished.

She grabbed him suddenly by the neck. She forced him down, and again the weight brought him pain. She stepped on his freshly cut hand while her fingers clawed into the shallow definition of his windpipe. Dorian watched him in his widening green eyes fill with fear and the realization that he had gone too far trying to murder Minerva. She put the hatchet away for only a moment so she could wrap both hands around his neck. She squeezed and squeezed, the gurgling and sputtering chirping in his room frightening Aasim and Omar. She didn’t aim to choke him. To her, she needed him to calm down enough so she could enact another punishment. Instead, she took advantage of his weakened state and slammed him against the wall. She made sure to deftly hit his head until he was disoriented.

“Dorian, that’s enough!” Lilly shouted behind her.

“Lilly!” Dorian gasped.

“Minnie told me what happened, and while he needs to be punished, let’s try not killing him.”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

Mitch was released promptly, and he slid to the floor, holding his head as he tried to regain his bearings. He wasn’t, by any means, freed. Lilly knelt to his level. His eyes were shifting left to right and right to left in a vain attempt to focus.

“You poor, misguided boy,” Lilly sighed. She patted his head. “That school may have tried to get rid of your affliction, but they never taught you manners.” She slowly grabbed his hair, placed the blade of her hunting knife behind his ear, and pulled fast.

Mitch screamed and cried, and without his ear, it sounded like he was surrounded by his suffering. Lilly left him; Mitch pressed his hands against where his ear used to be attached to his head.

“How much did the doctor say to give him?” Minerva asked him. She was holding an orange childproof bottle.

“Just give him two,” Lilly told her. She knew that Vicodin was a dangerous drug. She wanted to let Mitch sit in pain a little longer, but she also knew that once it subsided, he would only start his bad behavior again. She took the pill bottle, opening it without any problems. “Mitch, we’re going to give you something for the pain. You can only have two.”

She approached him. Mitch, still disoriented, flinched. Lilly forced open his mouth then pushed the pill far enough into his mouth that he swallowed it by accident. He tried to cough it up, but it instead moved down his esophagus. Within minutes, he began to feel its effects.

He was floating high above the boat, the woods and river, the entirety of West Virginia. Everywhere was teetering and spinning, or was he spinning? There was no food or water in his stomach to help absorb the medication, and it began to hurt his stomach. Thanks to the lightheadedness, though, he didn’t register it. The pain in his head and back melted away. He tried to speak but the words came out in garbled wails. Then he flopped over.

“Out like a light,” Dorian chuckled. “You sure he won’t get hooked on that shit?”

“He might, but if he does, we can use this to keep him in line,” Lilly said.

Aasim, Omar, and Violet tried to call out to Mitch, but he just lay there. He was unresponsive aside from breathing. He heard his name mentioned followed by the ebbs of sounds that made him question if he was going to die. The only thing he could do was simply fall asleep.

And when he woke up again, he heard Clementine’s voice reverberating around him. There were five of her in front of him, but only one of them was holding him in her arms. She was saying his name repeatedly, but from where?

“C-Cle—Clem…?” he tried to say, his slurred speech a side effect of the medication. He was fading again. He couldn’t even hold his head straight long enough to look at her.

“What the fuck did they do to you?” she whispered.

Mitch fell back asleep for a couple hours, waking back up somewhat to find Lilly in the cell with him. Still unable to focus, Violet was sitting where she had been since the beginning. Now Clementine was here, staring down the leader of the raiders.

“I’m going to be the one that breaks out and slits your throat while you sleep,” Clementine threatened Lilly. “I’m going to make you pay for you did to my friends.”

“I figured you would say that,” Lilly responded. Her voice was garbled, disappearing into the deafening silence.

Passing out then waking up again, this time a little more lucid as the drug worked its way out of his system, he found that Clementine had gotten the cell open. She was dragging him out along with Louis’s help. Aasim was holding up Omar whose leg was still injured from the attack. Minerva was on the ground bleeding from a wound in her shoulder. Violet was at her side.

“What…happened?” Mitch asked.

“You’re awake!” Clementine gasped. She hugged him tightly before looking him in his eyes. His face was covered in dried blood. His hair, also stained, covered where his ear used to be. “I’m so sorry, Mitch. I can’t help you out of here. I have to go find AJ; Lilly took him.”

Mitch still wasn’t feeling completely himself, and with one ear missing, he was bothered by the omniscience of Clementine’s voice. Louis offered him a shoulder because of the linger effects of the medication he had been forced to take.

“What’s…Violet doing…?” he asked through the fog in his head.

Clementine turned to her. She felt sorry for Minerva for being brainwashed by the raiders. She felt even more sorry for Violet, who couldn’t let her go. No matter the begging, she wouldn’t leave her side.

“Clementine, we need to go,” Aasim urged her. “Omar and Mitch both need help.”

“Vi…” Mitch groaned.

“I can’t leave her!” Violet told them. “Just go. I’ll catch up after I make sure she’s okay.”

“I’m…sorry for…what I said…”

Clementine figured she had missed something between them. Mitch told her not to worry about it. Louis held him up, asking, “You want to be with Clem for a second?”

“You need to get going,” Mitch said. He looked at her with tired by determined eyes. “Lilly is a fucking monster. I don’t know what’ll happen if AJ is with her for too long, but I know that if it were Willy—”

“I know. Alright, I’ll see you guys on the beach,” Clementine said resolutely. She came to Mitch. “And make sure you make it back to the school. We can catch up when we’re all home safe.” Giving him a kiss on his cheek, she sent her friends on their way. Now she had to get AJ back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is based on Rascet's fanart if Mitch was captured and he gets an ear cut off. Not the best, and I did take some Deus Ex Vicodin to skip some Clementine-Lilly dialogue. But truthfully, this has been sitting and I wanted to wrap it up so I could continue on with more Mitchentine fics.

**Author's Note:**

> Miiiiitch, I'm so sorry, baby...
> 
> Essentially, after the jailbreak, things would progress as usual. Mitch would make it back to the school seeing as his knee is fucked, and considering that he gets just as scared as the other kids, I don't think he would throw himself into the fight on the deck.
> 
> It was also a really bad idea to read this while running on fumes after work.


End file.
